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WINTER STUDY
by Nevada Barr
Putnam, April 2008
384 pages
$24.95
ISBN: 0399154582


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

Anna Pigeon is the district ranger for Rocky Mountain National Park but she is going to Isle Royale in winter to observe the wolf/moose study that has been ongoing for the last 50 years. Wolves are to be introduced to Rocky Mountain and the best way to study the interaction of predator and prey is to observe. Isle Royale is closed to visitors during the winter, which is the wolves' breeding season. The only people at the park are the scientists and their assistants.

Ridley Murray is the lead researcher. He is assisted by Robin Adair, biathlete, who is at home in winter and collects data. There are also two other members of their party. Anna arrives to find that two members of Homeland Security, Dr. Bob Menechin and his assistant, and doctoral candidate, Kathy Huff, will also be in the group. Homeland Security wants to open the park to visitors in winter. They claim that since it is so close to Canada, terrorists can slip in to the US if the park is deserted. This would end the study and put more stress on the island itself. Anna has already seen many changes at Isle Royale since she was last there (A SUPERIOR DEATH, 1994) and wouldn't like to see any more.

There are three wolf packs on the island, each probably of 6 or 7 animals, and evidence that both wolf and moose are starving. All the wolves are descendants of a pair that came across an ice bridge from Canada many years earlier. The moose have eaten almost all the trees that they like and their population has fallen by over 1000 since Anna's last visit. Older moose bear strangely shaped antlers because they lack the nutrients to regrow them properly.

A dead wolf is found and strange footprints, as of a giant wolf or wolf/dog hybrid, which is actually more dangerous than a wolf. And then one of the members of the team dies. Is wolf or man the predator?

Barr does best in the northern parks and here is no exception. In the locked room of the frozen national park, Anna Pigeon has to explain unnatural phenomena, keep Homeland Security from destroying scientific work, and try and find the murderer. All of which she does just as gracefully at 50 as she did at 30-something in TRACK OF THE CAT. Let's hope that we don't have to wait three years for the next Anna Pigeon book. This is a series that hasn't lost it.

Reviewed by Barbara Franchi, May 2008

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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